POETRY.
IRELAND IN "EIGHTEEN."
"Who fears to speak of Ninety-eight ? "—J. K. INGRAM (1840.
" Wno fears to speak of Ninety-eight ? " Was once her poet's cry.
A sterner question, urged by Fate, Now challenges reply. When battle-thunders rock the sphere, And earth with hell is bleat, Will she hang up au idle spear, And loiter in her tent, Keening an immemorial woe, Crouched o'er a sullen fire, Envisaging a phantom foe With ineffectual ire?
Where are the clansmen of O'Neill ?
Whither the Wild Geese fled ? Where the Brigade, with ranks of steel, That wandered, fought, and bled ?
Shall stricken peoples cry in vain,
The Old, the New World call ? Ancestral bonds be cleft in twain, The Gael forsake the Gaul ?
Nay; let her press into the van Beneath her banner green ; And giving all for God and Man, Immortalise " Eighteen."
FREDERICK S. BOAS. •
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